


The World Beyond the Cave

by DorianDrifting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Jegulus Week 2021 | Starchaser Week 2021, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Post-Hogwarts, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:41:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorianDrifting/pseuds/DorianDrifting
Summary: "But at that moment, as callous as it may have been, Regulus felt every bit the bright star of his namesake. He was the golden snitch no seeker could find. And he was the person James Potter could never catch. Because that is always the problem with chasing stars; they burned out long before you came along."Slow Burn Jegulus Story Beginning in Regulus's Fourth Year
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black/James Potter, Regulus Black/Original Male Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a little over half of this story written already, but just a forewarning that throughout the story I stay honest about the fact that he becomes a fascist and holds deeply prejudice views! And just a clarification in case; none of his regressive, antiquated, and/or bigoted perspectives on gender, sexuality, or fascism are my own, nor should they be excused! Part of what I find most interesting about him is the character growth and him ultimately sacrificing his life to try to atone for the damage he inflicted. Many will point to the abuse and indoctrination he undergoes at the hands of his parents from a young age, but there is no justification for his actions. The story is from his perspective and in many ways he is an unreliable narrator. I still hope the story will be interpreted as intended: not a story of justification, but of working towards accountability. Bigotry is rampant in the world of Harry Potter and our own. We have an obligation to educate ourselves and reduce the harm we cause. With that in mind, I want to firmly condemn J.K. Rowling for doubling down on her violent rhetoric, especially towards trans-women, and her prejudice, one-dimensional depictions of a very limited number of characters of color.
> 
> Story-wise I tried to be as canon-compliant as I could, but admittedly I’m not well-versed on the Marauder’s timeline, and sometimes things in canon are referenced by age, which means it could fall into different years of schooling. Or for instance, many people consider Regulus’s death to have taken place in the summer, however, when it was referenced in one of the books, it was said he died some 15 years ago which actually would’ve been 1980. However, it’s been directly said that he died in 1979, so his death will eventually come at the end of December of 1979. If you read all of this, wow, thank you! Happy reading! <3

Regulus Arcturus Black wanted so many things in life. For Walburga and Orion Black to miraculously become the parents he always needed. For his older brother to see him as more than a naive little kid always in need of protection. For the world to be a place where he could close his eyes and not feel its weight sat upon his chest so deeply that most nights he awoke heaving for one more breath. And then another. Letting his lungs fill and deplete, taking it one gasp at a time until he could still his racing heart.

He could remember the first time he felt as though he was drowning on hard ground. It was September 2nd, 1971. Sirius had left early the day before to arrive at King’s Cross to board the Hogwarts Express for his first year. Regulus had awoken early because Sirius had promised to owl him a letter all about the sorting ceremony and the first-year feast the first chance he got. Regulus knew it was silly to be nervous about attending Hogwarts: It was a whole year away! But he wanted time to prepare himself for what was to come, so he made Sirius promise to tell him everything.

And Sirius had.

His letter was brimming with minute details that most little brothers would not have cared to read, but Sirius knew Regulus would. He told him about a boy with dark, messy hair that he had sat next to on the train. The boy had even taught him some greetings in Punjabi, and how much cooler was that than French lessons? And how a stuffy boy and haughty girl had sat in their compartment, until the friendly boy, James, had gotten into a disagreement over houses with a “slick-haired git called Snape”. That was when Sirius had dropped the bombshell that he and this James had been sorted into Gryffindor and were rooming with two other boys, a book-ish lad named Remus Lupin and one Peter Pettigrew, who had already taken to worshipping James.

There was more to the letter, but the rest had burned off. Walburga had gotten to it first. Regulus watched her face grow red as she read it. With every word, her jaw seemed to clutch tighter, until she dropped it in the fireplace and with the snap of her fingers sent a fire whirling. She didn’t even seem to notice Regulus as she stomped off, mumbling foreign swears under her breath.

Regulus used a poker to fork the message out. And he was still reading it as his mother came back into the drawing-room with his father in tow. This time, she noticed the young boy at once, snatching the letter out of his hand to shove in Orion’s face.

“See this? He’s gone and got himself sorted into Gryffindor. A shame. A disgrace he’s brought down upon our family.”

This kind of talk, or rather shouting, went on for some time. Regulus wondered if he might be able to slip out of the room right under his parents' noses when his mother turned and narrowed her rage-filled eyes at him.

“This is the brother you idolize, dear Regulus?” Despite her endearment, there was no warmth to her tone. “He is a stain on the Black name and you will do best not to follow in his footsteps. If we should find that you have not been sorted into Slytherin come next Autumn term, the consequences will be most ex- _cruci_ -ating. Do I make myself clear, boy?”

Regulus swallowed, hard, catching her turn of phase, and nodded.

The sharp blow to his face landed hard enough to make him yelp as he bit down on his tongue in surprise. 

“Use your words!” Walburga clucked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, clutching his cheek. The words sounded metallic in his mouth.

He was sent back to his room which did not in any way feel like a punishment. It would have almost been a relief had he not slunk to the floor, clutching his chest, realizing how hard it had suddenly become to take in air. At first, he thought he was dying, that his lungs were giving out, but then Kreacher found him. The House-elf had rubbed his back in gentle circles and perhaps pressed some magic through him. He hiccuped with his remaining tears but could breathe once again. So maybe he wasn’t dying just yet.

For years after, he never knew how to quell the panic that swept over his body. It always started with a thought. Something simple, something like Walburga’s voice telling him that he was this close to becoming the heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. That all she needed was her elder son to nudge a toe out of line, and she was sure she could convince Orion to disinherit him this time. The words were whispered so sweetly to Regulus, as though this was something both he and his mother had been waiting on, a conspiracy brushed against his cheek, like a motherly caress that would never come.

He’d push it down when he could, bury it deep inside with all the other shame he carried around. But sometimes, he couldn’t. Then the thought would spiral, and with each twist grow larger, spreading like branches on a Whomping Willow, gnarled boughs crushing all other more logical thoughts. Then he could think only of how he would be the one left to carry on the Black name, the only male heir. His brother, who already could barely meet his eyes most days, would be burned off the family tapestry like cousin Andromeda. And then Regulus would truly be alone.

This was the exact thought that late one evening in his fourth year had him hyperventilating on the way back from the library. It was nearly curfew but Regulus found himself ducking within a familiar alcove covered by a tapestry of Morgana le Fay. The books that seemed so important only minutes ago, were dropped to the ground, as Regulus slid down the wall beside them, his legs fanning out before him. His mind was racing and yet it never strayed too far from the singular idea that Regulus could not do this. He could not be what his parents _and_ his brother needed him to be, though he tried. He could not stretch himself thin enough to reach them both.

Eventually, he wore himself out, and the worst of the wave passed through him. His hands were still trembling, but he could breathe again, though shakily. He was tired in a way that traveled down to his bones. And he didn’t want to get up. He wanted to sit here in this quiet alcove until the world forgot about him.

As though taunting him, he heard his brother’s voice bellow, “Where are you?” And then a laugh.

Regulus would have froze if he could have, but the tremors didn’t care that he needed to be undetectable.

“Shut your gob. You’re gonna get us caught!” came a whispered voice with just a hint of a Welsh lilt. Remus Lupin betrayed his words, sounding as though he, too, was holding back a laugh.

“Not my fault Prongs abandoned us,” Sirius called into the seemingly empty hallway, as though tempting his friend to come defend his own honor. A pair of feet stopped in front of the cloth and Regulus knew he had been caught, but he still sent out a silent prayer to Merlin that Sirius would not pull back the tapestry.

Remus hushed him again. A second set of feet came into view. “Maybe if you hadn’t tried to stick bubotuber pus in his trousers he wouldn’t have taken off. Now come on before Filch finds us.”

“Or worse, Evans,” Sirius snickered.

Regulus heard their footsteps echoing down the hall until he didn’t.

There was some shuffling after that and then a whining voice hollered, “Hey, wait for me!”

Peter Pettigrew sounded distraught, but he was soon gone as well.

Something like a rush of wind caught on the tapestry and for a second Regulus could see the hallway, but it still looked empty, so he let out a sigh, grateful someone had listened to his plea.

And then James Potter took off an invisibility cloak and Regulus wanted to curse the powers that be.

The chaser’s lean frame wasn’t even turned towards him, but Regulus knew it was him by profile alone. He was staring out into the hallway, as though hoping for his friends to come back to give them the scare of their lifetime. Or perhaps waiting them out to avoid more bubotuber pus. His body was shaking with what Regulus realized was silent laughter.

“Tossers,” he snorted.

And Regulus thought that maybe if the boy just didn’t turn around he would be okay.

But of course, he did.

And that’s how James Potter found Regulus Black: hidden behind a tapestry, tear-streaked, quivering with the after-effects of a fit of terror. It was the worst sort of luck for someone who already wasn’t all that lucky. No doubt this would get back to his brother and how pathetic was that? He was already smaller and younger, and now he had to be more sensitive too. Regardless of whether Sirius knew the latter, it would still be true, but the knowing part made it all the worse in Regulus’s eyes. It was something he learned to keep to himself from an early age at the hands of Walburga’s bruising palm against his face.

For a beat there was quiet, just James’s wide-eyed expression, mouth gaping a little in surprise. Then, “Are you-- Are you alright, mate?” There was no pretense, no pretending that Regulus didn’t look every bit the mess he felt. Regulus could have gladly died from the sheer embarrassment of it all. 

“Fine, Potter,” he tried to grit out, sounding feeble even to his own ears.

“Are you sure?” the Gryffindor tried again. He was still standing, but moved a little closer, towering over the younger boy. Regulus couldn’t help it; he flinched. And James saw it too because then he was kneeling down before the boy, like an animal rolling on its belly trying to convey a message about not being a threat. _What a joke_.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Regulus tried to level his eyes with the other boy, but he couldn’t quite make them reach. He settled for a spot just beyond the older boy’s shoulder.

James nodded stiffly and rubbed at the back of his head, mussing his already wild locks. After an uncomfortably long silence, he asked, “What are the books for?” He gestured with his other hand to the haphazardly arranged tomes.

“Essay,” Regulus supplied, dryly.

James gave Regulus a look and narrowed his eyes. “On?”

“Goblin Rebellions.” Regulus cleared his throat, hating his brittle tone.

“History of Magic.”

“Yeah.”

“Binns.”

“Mhm.”

“Riveting,” James sighed the word as though even speaking it aloud was boring.

Finally, Regulus and James’ eyes met. James crinkled his nose a little. And Regulus was struck by how entirely mad it all was, because he was in an alcove, having just cried, with James Potter, talking about Goblin Rebellions, and it was so strange there was nothing to do but let out a barking laugh, that James returned in kind.

When their short-lived laughter died, James sat next to Regulus and let his legs spread out, resting one of his ankles against Regulus’s foot. The younger boy was a good few inches shorter, but seated like this they felt like equals.

“Don’t tell my brother,” Regulus whispered.

He felt James shift his weight, leaning into his side. It shouldn’t seem so natural, but it did. The other boy’s shoulder grounded him somehow, pulled him back into the reality of his body.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don--”

“I won’t tell your brother. Just tell me what’s wrong.” It should have sounded like a command, or maybe a threat; like if Regulus didn’t tell him what was bothering him he _would_ tell Sirius. But James’s tone was so carefully polite it felt as if he was offering Regulus a favor. Maybe he was well-rehearsed. Maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d had to comfort an upset Black and so Regulus found himself wanting to tell James how hard it was to breathe sometimes. Maybe he wouldn’t be cruel like Rosier or Crouch whenever they had overheard him wake from a fitful nightmare. 

“Sometimes it’s too much,” Regulus said.

James tilted his head as if trying to decipher the words. His glasses fell to the tip of his nose, and Regulus had the urge to press them back into place.

“What’s too much?”

“Everything; Walburga--” James interrupted this with a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. “Orion, even Sirius.” James looked like he was going to interrupt again, but this time with words, so Regulus continued on before he could, “And I know he’s your friend, and I know how my parents are but sometimes I just wish he would bite his tongue or not give them reasons to send howlers every other day.”

James sighed. “It’s not his responsibility to learn how to live with their abuse.”

“I know, it’s just--”

“Not your’s, either,” James clarified.

Regulus didn’t know what to say to that, so he stared straight ahead and willed James to leave so he didn’t have to concern himself with ridiculous notions of what people deserve. Doesn’t matter, after all. There’s only what you get and what you don’t. What you want versus what you can have. James Potter couldn’t understand that, because he had it all and then some. But Regulus tried to make him see it.

“Do you ever want to disappear for a while?” He tried to gauge James’s reaction with a flickered look in his direction.

“What? Like, be invisible?”

“Yeah.” Regulus considered this. “That’d be nice.”

“Well that’s not all that hard, now is it?” James asked.

There was a sudden movement and then a feeling like silk settled over Regulus’s skin. The cloak was fluid-like and wrapped the two boys in its silvery sheen. It was foolish because they were already well hidden from prying eyes, but it put a soft smile on Regulus’s lips. The Slytherin boys would love to know about this little piece of magic, especially Snape, but maybe they both could keep what they’d seen tonight to themselves.

“Not quite what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, but this is the closest to being invisible any of us get.”

“A shame,” Regulus whispered because it felt like he had to be quiet now, to truly bask in his newfound invisibility.

“I don’t think you want to be invisible.” James’s voice was hushed too. “I think you want them to see you as you are instead of how they want you to be.”

Regulus’s throat felt heavy.

James glanced over. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Regulus hunched in on himself. “They’re never going to. That’s why it’s better not to be seen at all.”

James put a hesitant, but comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder.

They sat like that for another ten minutes, in a sort of companionable silence. And then Mrs. Norris meowed outside the tapestry, seeming to recognize their scent and it was time to go. They made their way down to the dungeons, completely unobserved, and for once Regulus felt entirely at peace. He stopped them outside a bare stretch of stone wall and lifted the cloak after a few furtive glances down the hall.

“Don’t tell Sirius,” he reminded James, but this time not because he was afraid James wanted to tell, but because Regulus could remember a time when he couldn’t keep things from Sirius, too.

From somewhere off to his side, James Potter, still hidden, whispered, “I promise.”

Two months later, come Christmas break, Sirius would be gone, cast out on his own, and Regulus would be right about it all, but for a brief moment under an invisibility cloak, Regulus Black had been seen for the first time in his fourteen years.


	2. Chapter 2

Tucked away, hidden under centuries-old disillusionment charms there existed a cove where it had been said the waters ran so clear that the depths of the ocean floor surrendered their secrets to viewers' prying eyes. The stories of Muggles told of a most powerful wizard gazing within its whirlpool and unraveling the enigma of life itself. It was here, on these French shores, that he discovered within himself the answers he had longed for; it was here that Philosopher’s Stone was forged.

Nicolas Flamel would take refuge in this paradise, isolating himself for nearly a decade as he refined his creation in a little cottage on its banks. His magic continued to conceal this location long after he left. Wizards and Muggles alike whispered of this hidden place. Many concluded it did not exist at all. 

That is how it found its name.

_Les Eaux du Mythe._

_The Waters of Myth._

The old wizard loved the shrouded mystery that surrounded the cove. He thought it quite funny. So for centuries, he said nothing to those who would seek to explore its lengths. He even clouded his mind when he felt his thoughts were not safe. Only his wife, and eventually a lost boy he had taken for a son would see beyond the veil of magic protecting the inlet.

This was the tale Uncle Alphard wove for his young nephews every time they came to visit his home, the very same cottage of lore, by request of Regulus Black himself. And like clockwork, the young boy would ask the same question.

“Then how did you find it?”

The man would always whisper back, “Well I can’t go telling you all of my secrets, now can I?”

And then he would placate the boys with cauldron cakes and games of Wizard’s Chess that he would miraculously lose every third round, despite having been a Hogwarts champion in his youth. He would huff and profess his false exasperation at their improvements over the year since he had last seen them.

Regulus thought he was amazing. 

He only wished the old man would admire him as much as he did Sirius. After all, it was Regulus who put on his best behavior for _months_ leading up to Summer. It was Regulus who would find subtle ways to compliment and point out aspects of Sirius that were more favorable to their parents. It was he who promised his mother that he would keep his older brother in line. He leveraged all his limited power to free them of 12 Grimmauld Place for two weeks a year, every year before they went off to Hogwarts.

And yet, Uncle Alphard looked at Sirius like the sun shone out his arse.

It was incredibly disheartening to Regulus, too used to being his parents’ favorite. He would never have said that out loud, of course, but both the Black brothers knew this to be true. Two weeks was all the time Sirius got to be the chosen one. And yet, Regulus was greedy for them as well, all the same. Much later, Regulus would realize how much he should have cherished his older brother’s leniency with this. He often allowed Regulus to domineer over the conversations with their uncle. The boy was given free rein to absorb all the air in the room.

It was a wonderful feeling because Regulus seemed to breathe easier at Uncle Alphard’s. The old man was a permissive sort of bloke. He usually let the boys run around lost in a fantasy of the older boy’s making. Some mornings they were royal knights in King Arthur’s court on a mission to rescue the fair maiden, in this case, the house-elf Mrs.Black was willing to part with, Kreacher. Uncle Alphard didn’t have any of his own, though he said nothing of the servant’s presence in his home. 

When Kreacher was busy, the boys were pirates, like out of a book in Uncle Alphard’s library. Sirius would dump his belongings into a pile on the floor, filling his empty chest with trinkets from around the house (Regulus only knew because he would trip over them on these early days). He’d go out to a stretch of the beach that was tucked away before the younger boy awoke and bury the treasure as deep as he could manage. Then he would cross two branches, an X marking the spot, and make his way back inside to wake Regulus.

Regulus was never any good at exploring, but he had so much fun that he didn’t mind. If he was taking too long, Sirius would break character to guide him in the proper direction. Or, sometimes, if Regulus was being particularly dense about finding the treasure and it was growing too warm outside, Sirius would pluck the younger boy up and dispose of him in the clear waters. The older boy would jump in after, laughing until Regulus’s splashing would wipe clean his smug face.

The afternoons were spent with the boys lounging around on a well-loved, provincial-style settee, giggling at nothing at all the way little children do. Sometimes Uncle Alphard would grow weary of their immature ways, and he would call them into his office, beckoning them with one hand and a finger to his lips hushing them as though someone was lurking around the corner, though it was only ever just them. Maybe he didn’t trust Kreacher the way Regulus did.

“Here,” he would say, handing them a few Muggle coins. “Go to the theatre. Be back at dinner time.”

The theatre felt like years away to two little boys, but they would march into the nearest Muggle town, right up to the teller and demand to see whatever was playing as long as it wasn’t something cheesy, like romance, which Sirius said he hated, or horror, which the boys were technically not allowed to see. (That hadn’t stopped Sirius from once sneaking them into a special showing of some Swedish film, _Hour of the Wolf._ They made it half an hour in before running back to the original movie they had purchased tickets for. Nonetheless, Regulus had been so frightened that he would climb into Sirius’s bed every night for weeks afterwards for fear of sleeping alone.) Sometimes, however, their options for the hours ahead were limited, and then Sirius would always cave. Later, Regulus would be convinced that Sirius secretly didn’t dislike romance movies all that much, no matter how “girly” he proclaimed them to be.

Regulus would try to picture himself as one of the Muggle actors on the screen: a boy, either running through the rain trying to catch up to the girl he loved before she was gone, throwing rocks outside a window, or serenading his crush. The older he got, the more he began to realize that he wouldn’t mind all that much a boy doing all those things for him, either. But this didn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d say out loud, so he didn’t.

Regulus always thought Uncle Alphard was instructing them to be back at dinner time because he worried the boys would get themselves into trouble if they were out too late. He never considered that perhaps the old man didn’t want them home a moment sooner because he was otherwise preoccupied. And then there came a day that the boys gave up on watching another movie because they had been sent out so much that week, they had seen all the ones they cared to. Instead, they stopped in a shop and spent their coins on a stockpile of candy.

On this particular trek back, the boys stopped just down the road, by an empty plot of grassy land next to the cottage.

“Who’s that?” Regulus asked. “The bloke on the broom? And what’s he doing with Uncle Alphie?” He pointed and turned toward his brother. Surely, Sirius would know. His older brother always had all the answers to his most pressing questions.

But Sirius didn’t know, and so the two boys waited right where they were, licorice wands hanging from their sticky mouths. The men were hugging goodbye. The sight didn’t seem too unusual until their Uncle Alphard leaned in and kissed the other man square on his lips. Sirius and Regulus looked at each other and like the movies and the Muggle books, it was never said that there should be no talk of this to their mother or father, but the boys knew better.

“Come on,” Sirius had said, turning away from the sight.  
They did not talk until they were back in the house, and then, only to badger Kreacher, who was cleaning the front room, for an early dinner.

That night, Regulus had been unable to fall asleep, lying awake in his bed considering what he had seen. He must have been ten because he could still remember having to leave early that next day for Sirius to get fitted for his new robes at Madam Malkin’s. Sirius told Regulus he could’ve stayed, but nothing was ever the same when Sirius was gone, so he had left too. He could remember wanting to wake Sirius and ask him if he knew what the earlier events of the day had meant. Their parents were not the affectionate type, so Regulus’s only frame of reference for kissing came from Muggles in the movies and sometimes couples around the shops in Wizarding London. But they were seemingly always of the opposite sex.

Were boys allowed to kiss? Could they hold hands? The more he thought about it, he figured not. Uncle Alphie had been bidding the man goodbye a decent distance from his own house. That didn’t seem like the kind of thing someone with nothing to hide would do. Regulus felt a burst of remorse for having brushed off the man’s request that night to play Wizard’s Chess one last time before the boys left. He was sure that if he had to sit with the man, all his thoughts would erupt out of him at once. Years later, Regulus would regret this even more so. That was the last summer Sirius and him would spend at the cottage, but not for lack of trying. In retrospect, perhaps Uncle Alphard, and Nicolas Flamel, too, were right to be wary of prying eyes.

The next morning, they were to Floo home through a private connection that only turned on once a year in anticipation of the boys’ arrival and departure. When Regulus was but a meter from the hearth, he put to the test a theory he had been playing with in the wee hours.

“Uncle Alphie?” he asked.

“Yes, Regulus?” The older man’s eyes were softened in the green flames left in the wake of Sirius’s departure.

“Will you please tell me how you discovered _Les Eaux du Mythe?_ ” He felt a hopeful expression tugging at his face.

The old man, by sight, examined the nooks of the room, as though there could be found a creature lurking. When his exploration turned up empty, there came a deep sigh.

“Oh, alright. Do you remember what I told you about Nicolas Flamel, how he shared his secret with no one?”

“No one except his wife and the lost boy,” Regulus corrected, tracing the familiar lines of the story like a map in his mind.

“Yes, precisely, you remember his son. He’s quite grown now...”

“Is he your--” Regulus faltered for a moment. “Is he your _friend_?” The last word was given with a particular inflection.

“Of a sort,” Uncle Alphard replied, easily enough. There was no guilt.

“Oh okay,” Regulus said, satisfied that the riddle of the man on the broom was solved. He turned to the fireplace, but then thought better, coming to face the man once more.

“Uncle Alphie?” he mumbled, sounding more soft-spoken than he had ever before.

“Yes, Reggie? Is there something you wish to tell me?”

Regulus considered his answer and willed his uncle to understand his meaning. He didn’t yet have the words to express the truth. His hands were clutched tightly, as though his secret was a physical entity that could be contained if only he gripped his palm tight enough. He let it loosen and reveal itself.

“I think I’m a lost boy too.”

At this, the man knelt before the little boy with a searching look. He must have caught something in Regulus’s eyes because he gave a knowing smile. It was as gentle as the man himself.

“Forget your worries, my dear. Lost boys can very easily turn into found men.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of an easter egg but Hour of the Wolf, the 1968 movie mentioned is about a man who struggles with falling to sleep because of his metaphorical demons (which become personified) and one is usually interpreted as repressed sexuality and while the movie is very old and problematic in many ways I think it’s interesting to juxtapose the media he’s taking in (though he left early and would be too young to understand such metaphors) with his uncles reaction.


End file.
